Search

This work aimed to identify sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of population who look for enuresis treatment in a university care center for this disorder and to identify the most used familiar coping strategies facing the episodes of "wet" in cases of primary nocturnal enuresis. Descriptive analyses of medical files were performed from 185 children (6-11 years old) and 55 adolescents (12-18 years old), from both sexes, screened between 2004 and 2009, whose extracted information were: sociodemographic and clinical data as well as family coping strategies. High frequency of "wet night" over six weekly was identified in children and adolescents (70.6% and 50%). There was a male (67.9%) prevalence of a child population (77.1%) from middle-class families. When the family looked for previous treatment, medication treatment proved to be the priority among children (28.7%) and adolescents (47.1%). More frequent strategies facing enuretic episodes for minimizing damage and preventing bed wetness in both age groups were: using diapers or protective mattress and waking the child to go to the bathroom. Punishment was declared by only 15.4% of parents of children and 17.3% of adolescents. The data showed that the low incidence of disadvantaged families in the service constitutes a challenge since the philosophy of the service is attending all economic tracks, and the burden brought by enuresis seems to push families into searching for alternatives to solve the problem when the first response to clinical treatment is not satisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]